Recently, to make vehicular insurance evaluations and analyses, insurance companies have suggested taking into account vehicle telematics data. However, not all vehicles have the sensors necessary to measure or record useful telematics data. In other cases, communicating with the vehicle's sensors or the vehicle computer that monitors those sensors poses a challenge. For example, different types of vehicles have different vehicle computers, each of which requires a different vehicle communication protocol for communication. In these situations, it may be desirable to provide a supplemental telematics sensing system for a vehicle. However, these supplemental telematics sensing systems tend to be bulky, expensive, cumbersome, and difficult to use. Thus, alternative telematics sensing systems may be desirable.
Smartphones such as the IPHONE® device and the BLACKBERRY® device are becoming more and more common. These smartphones have processing and memory capabilities that are comparable to those of desktop computers of the late 1990s, and are miniature computers in their own right. In addition, the incorporation of telematics sensors such as accelerometers and GPS sensors into smartphones is becoming more prevalent. For example, the IPHONE® device includes a miniature accelerometer that is configured to provide acceleration data to any of a multitude of applications executing on the IPHONE® device processor. The powerful processing and memory capabilities of modern smartphones, along with their data transmission capabilities, telematics-sensing capabilities, and widespread adoption, make them suitable candidates for portable supplemental telematics sensing systems for vehicles.